Più Tardi, Amore Mio
by wild-sunshine
Summary: Leonardo's a procrastinator, and Ezio succeeds- only once- in getting him to do something right away. Slash Leo/Ezio, pure fluff


Hi!

Quick fluff fic before finishing up other stuff :) Hope everyone likes it!

EDIT: I re-uploaded, to fix the spelling errors. New PC doesn't have spell check, I didn't notice.. oops.

Enjoy!

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Leonardo Da Vinci is a chronic procrastinator. He's a genius, beyond brilliant, so creative that the sky is merely the threshold, not the limit.

Ezio Auditore is careful. He plans everything down to the last step, thrives on maps and diagrams and the reassurance they bring. People who refuse to plan ahead infuriate him; Leonardo is incapable of planning.

If Ezio wasn't in love with Leonardo, he'd have really hurt the artist by now.

"Leonardo, your customer wants this by _tomorrow?" _Ezio points to the canvas on Leonardo's worktable; it is completely blank, and Ezio isn't inclined to believe the customer is such a minimalist as to order a painting without paint.

"Si. Or today. One of the two." Leonardo is bent over something in his hands; it's a wonder he heard Ezio at all.

"You haven't even started yet!"

"I know exactly what the picture looks like," Leonardo says proudly.

"Where?"

"I haven't actually painted it yet." Leonardo shoots him a well-timed smile; Ezio forces himself to reconsider screaming at the artist.

"Leonardo..." he settles for growling. Leonardo just smiles.

"I'll do it later. Look!" He holds out his hands to reveal a tiny paper bird. "A merchant taught me, it's origami!"

"Leo-" Ezio struggles to stay irritated, then gives up. "It's very nice." This makes Leonardo beam.

"Isn't it amazing? All these little folds and then, it becomes a crane!" He's clearly about to spend all afternoon on origami, and this reminds Ezio of why he came to the workshop.

"You really should finish the customer's painting first," he says, and Leonardo all-but pouts.

"Ezio, did you come here just to make me work?"

This is entirely true, but Ezio is not about to admit that, or the fact that he's committed Leonardo's schedule to memory.

"No," Ezio scowls, "I'm waiting for my target to return to the city." This is at least half true; the target is indeed out of Venezia. Granted, he isn't due to return for a month, and Ezio will probably go find him in Firenze, but there's at least a fifty-percent truth rate to the statement. Ezio can live with this. He watches Leonardo's deft fingers fold another tiny crane. "Besides, you need to be checked up on."

"I was going to finish it today," Leonardo protests. The sky blue of the paper matches his eyes, but the paper's blue isn't nearly as deep.

"Of course," Ezio starts arranging the cranes in a line across the worktable. "Today's the ninth, isn't it..."

"I'm not sure. Maybe. Look, it's a horse!" He sets the tiny figure down decidedly out of line with the cranes. "Why does it matter?"

"It doesn't," Ezio mumbles, turning away from the worktable. It won't be the first time he puts this off- every week, Ezio picks a day to tell Leonardo he loves him, and every time, he puts it off until next week. It's the most important thing he's ever had to do, and the only one he's ever procrastinated on so chronically.

"I think that painting is for tomorrow," Leonardo says casually, clearly not worried.

"Maybe you should start that, then, instead of adding to the flock." Ezio looks over the littering of cranes on the tabletop. It makes sense, that Leonardo's idle time-wasting would produce tiny creations of beauty. Leonardo heaves a sigh.

"Must you always be right?" he whines, but smiles like Ezio has somehow done something right. Sometimes, Ezio wonders if Leonardo plays with him, if he tests Ezio's patience and sets him up in situations to see how he'll react. It's like when Leonardo suddenly left Firenze; the way he smied when Ezio caught up to him, it was like Ezio had done something applaudable, like he did what Leonardo had expected. Ezio has never been able to shake that feeling, that Leonardo studies him; it makes Ezio nervous, that he might somehow fail and do the wrong thing, and that Leonardo will see.

"Maybe more blue..." Leonardo is mumbling to himself as he mixes paint into new hues, "no... red..." Ezio pulls out a chair and sits to watch; at this rate, Leonardo will be working all night, and Ezio will stay awake as well, because he never tires of watching. Surely this has been added to Leonardo's observations of him, but Ezio can't bring himself to change. Let Leonardo think Ezio is fascinated by his painting; he'll tell Leonardo the truth next week.

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The early afternoon sunlight sprawls across the table, placing the many paper cranes on a golden lake. Ezio frowns and adjusts the placement of a crane, moving it over to the left. He has carefully constructed a model of a house, out of large pieces of folded paper, and the cranes are scattered about it.

"Having fun?" Leonardo's voice comes from behind him. Ezio shrugs a shoulder, adding a blue crane to the edge of the roof.

"It's the guard tower," Ezio explains, "the red ones are archers, and the blue are guards-" he trails off when he sees how unaccountably amused Leonardo looks, "what?"

"Nothing." Again, an engimatic smile. Leonardo is probably analyzing his behavior. It probably says something terrible about him, too.

"You delievered your painting?" Ezio asks instead of _what are you thinking about me? _

"Si, she liked it very much. And her friend was there, and she requested I make one for her as well."

"Wonderful. Another due date. More procrastination." Ezio watches Leonardo wander around the other side of the table, already distracted by the folded paper.

"I might not procrastinate on this one!" Leonardo insists. This is one of those things about Leonardo that Ezio can't resist; he thinks of it as "optimism to the death" and it's ridiculously endearing.

"You procrastinate on everything, Leo."

"I do not!" Leonardo pouts, and Ezio has to stifle a laugh. "I can prove it to you!" His light blue eyes dance and it makes Ezio smile.

"Ah, yeah? Okay, right now, finish something you've been putting off, _if _you can do i-" Ezio is cut off abruptly when Leonardo suddenly yanks him across the table, crushing his lips to Ezio's. Ezio chokes for a second and moans, scrambling hands wrecking his model of the guard tower as he struggles to get closer to Leonardo. He manages to get one hand tangled in Leonardo's shirt, supporting himself on the other elbow, leaning into him. When they break for breath, Leonardo beams at him.

"I've been meaning to do that," he says, and Ezio just laughs, breathless, though he can't say if it's from surprise or relief.

"I have too," Ezio says, "but I kept putting it off." Leonardo traces patterns on Ezio's arm with a fingertip, humming softly. Sometimes, it seems like he's doing something creative no matter what he's doing.

"Even the great planner falls victim to procrastination," he smirks a little.

"I actually had a reason to put it off."

"You did, hmm?" They're still both leaned across the table, noses almost touching, and Ezio traces his hand along Leonardo's cheek, not wanting to move away.

"I thought you wouldn't-"

"You were scared?" Leonardo says, but there's not a trace of the scorn Ezio hears when he realized this himself.

"Maybe a little," he breathes, and Leonardo leans forward, closing the gap between them and kissing him gently.

"Don't be afraid with me," Leonardo says softly, "I promise, caro mio, you're safe here." The way this feels, fingers laced with Leonardo's, sharing a breath as their lips touch, Ezio has never felt as safe as he does now. He's never wanted to be anywhere else more.

"We should have done this sooner," he murmurs, and Leonardo smiles.

"Si, but I'm afraid breaking the procrastination habit won't be so easy," he says, "nothing else matters this much."

"That's okay. I'll be here to help with that."

"And distract me."

"And that too. Not like you need it," he adds, and Leonardo just laughs and pulls him in close again.

Leonardo is still a procrastinator, and Ezio is still a planner, and they might spend more time trying to balance each other out than actually succeeding in doing so, but even though Leonardo still does paintings at the last minute and Ezio obsesses over diagrams and guard posts, but they have more than their flaws now. Being together is being balanced out, and in those moments, there's nothing else. Nothing is more important; everything else is put off until later.

"Some things are more important than others," Leonardo tells Ezio, late one morning a year later, and Ezio smiles.

"You haven't finished that painting yet, have you?"

"Well... not exactly," Leonardo says sheepishly.

"Tomorrow morning," Ezio makes him promise, and Leonardo nods. Ezio tucks Leonardo against his chest, kisses the tip of his nose. "You're right, you know, amore mio."

"I know." Leonardo pauses, "about what?"

"You're more important than anything," Ezio whispers, and the way Leonardo smiles, the way that first made Ezio fall in love with him, Ezio knows this is true.

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Hope everyone liked that!

Please review :)

Love ya,

Sunshine


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